I see everyone going LOL Wikipedia but is it really that unreliable of a source? I recall reading some article comparing it to Britannica in accuracy
They're inaccurate in different ways, really. Britannica is inaccurate because it's a huge quantity of text stewarded by a finite number of professionals, and the articles tend to become very outdated. Wikipedia is inaccurate because people are constantly trying to impose their own personal biases on the articles, or just don't know shit about the subject they're writing about (the latter problem is probably present in Britannica as well, but to a lesser extent.)
Generally Wikipedia is okay for personal reference, although you should turn up your bullshit detector to maximum when reading about controversial topics like Middle Eastern politics. Checking the article history can help you judge how reliable a given article is likely to be.
You shouldn't be using either Wikipedia or Britannica as a source for your term paper. Following Wikipedia citations can be helpful in locating better sources, though.
Seems a huge % of wikipe is kopipe'd from elsewhere on the tubes.
Seems a huge % of the tubes is kopipe'd from elsewhere on the tubes.
Seems a huge % of the tubes is kopipe'd from elsewhere on the wikipe.
Seems a huge % of the elsewhere is kopipe'd from wikipe on the tubes.
>>1
The article focused on scientific articles, for which there is less bias than politics, religion, or history.
And Britannica still had far fewer errors.
>>7
Eh? I assumed >>1 was referring to the well-publicized http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/
While that particular study is controversial and suspect, I'm not aware of any similar comparison showing that Britannica has far fewer errors.
Do you have a link?
>>8
From that article that you linked:
> the journal claimed that Britannica turned up 123 "errors" to Wikipedia's 162.
I'd call that a significant difference, even when not considering the nature of the study. Your mileage may vary.
I believed I was referring to an earlier article I read (from The Register, I'm sure) when I mentioned the articles chosen for comparison were scientific in nature. My memory may be faulty.
Wikipedia is still the best 'free' encyclopedia that I know of, even if that's no saying much.
>>11
I agree, except I think the same about all encyclopedias.
>>14
meh. the polite thing would be to discuss first or tag the article